Who owns the poles?

Did I mention our neighbour across the river? The property which uses the town water supply for all its stock and domestic requirements? Well our power is delivered on poles across our neighbour’s property and his cattle were often seen grazing on our property. Somewhat inconvenient when we wanted to put in the underground services for our cottages. In response to our polite request to remove his cattle, our neighbour stated that he had an arrangement with all previous owners for the last 30 years. They could have electricity in return for his cattle crossing the river. Subtle.

But shouldn’t the river be fenced off from cattle? Yes. We used a Stream Care grant to buy our fencing material and 2000 native trees. Although we put in the fence, we still had our neighbour’s cattle walking all over the river bank. Perhaps you haven’t seen the erosion and other damage that cattle can make to rivers? We offered to help our neighbour apply for a grant— even offered to put it up. We really needed to get those cattle off the river bank, so we could plant our 2000 trees! We planted our trees and Graham wasted much of his time stringing up electric fences across the river and chasing cows. Many months later our neighbour erected a fence. Just in time to meet the deadline for a Stream Care grant.

The hydro pole on our property

Our neighbour’s hydro pole

Our neighbour used the hydro poles to service a pump on the river. When we needed to change the low voltage lines on this pole to bring high voltage lines across the river to our property we received a letter. He would not allow the linesmen to access his property without payment. To keep the peace we paid him $1000. The linesmen were on his property for about 3 hours.

The poles became an issue on two more occasions. When our neighbour disconnected his river pump he suggested we would need to maintain the poles and eventually replace them. Our neighbour was very quick to find an angle when we turned on our micro hydr,too. He wanted us to pay him a pole rental fee.

Of course all of this is non-sense. The poles carry high voltage and are owned by the Hydro Electric Company. Over the years we have reached a position of mutual respect with our neighbour, but he still has the ability to surprise us! Back to the main story.